The White House wants doctors to provide information about the out-of-pocket costs of prescription drugs and competing drugs.

Price transparency is a key theme to the broad package of proposals called American Patients First that the White House released May 11.

The administration is considering requiring a drug’s list prices to be included in all direct-to-consumer advertising.

The plan also calls for the banning of gag rules that prevent pharmacists from alerting patients when it would be cheaper to buy a prescribed drug without going through their insurance coverage, as well as moving certain drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D to improve the government’s ability to negotiations for lower prices.

The overall strategy is laid out across four areas:

Increasing competition though policy measures that prevent manufacturers from gaming the patent system and promoting innovation and competition among biologics.

Improving negotiation abilities, including doing more with value-based purchasing; allowing for more substitution, especially in the case of single-source generics; and further examination of the competitive acquisition program for Part B.